Professor Kelly-Anne Phillips is a Consultant Medical Oncologist, Co-Lead of Breast Medical Oncology and Senior Strategic Research Leader at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. She is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and a National Health and Medical Research Council Leadership Fellow. She trained in Medicine and Medical Oncology in Australia and undertook her doctoral research in Toronto, Canada before returning to Melbourne in 1999. She is committed to reducing the burden of breast cancer for women and their families by advancing and implementing knowledge in breast cancer risk assessment, prevention and treatment. Professor Phillips founded the Peter MacCallum Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk Management Clinic and is recognised internationally as an expert in breast cancer genetics and precision prevention. She has received awards for excellence in cancer prevention, women’s health and clinical trials research.

Professor Phillips led the development of iPrevent, an online tool to help women understand their personal breast cancer risk and to act on it. She leads health services research aimed at increasing use of preventive medications in women at increased risk.

She has led the kConFab Follow-Up Study since 2001, amassing longitudinal data from over 6,000 participants which has been used in global collaborations to better understand how to reduce breast cancer risk. She has been national and international lead for several worldwide breast cancer studies that have improved breast cancer treatments. She was the European and Australian Chair of the POEMS study that showed the effectiveness of using the drug Zoladex to minimise chemotherapy-induced menopause and infertility. She was national lead on the OlympiA study which proved the effectiveness of olaparib in improving survival for women with breast cancer and inherited abnormalities in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. She also chaired studies in Europe and Australia that elucidated the impact of anti-hormone treatments for breast cancer on cognitive function. Professor Phillips led the development of the ASCO Research Statement regarding assessing ovarian toxicity in cancer clinical trials, which was published in The Lancet Oncology in October 2023. She serves on national and international evidence-based guideline committees and is a Lancet Breast Cancer Commissioner.

Professor Phillips is committed to ensuring high quality research findings are translated into policy and clinical practice. Her research and advocacy have been instrumental in improving equity of access in Australia to drugs for breast cancer treatment, cancer prevention and prevention of chemotherapy-induced menopause.